Common Places

A lecture and Q&A session by Visiting Davenant Hall Fellow, Dr. Matthew Hoskins, entitled "Christmas and the Cross in the Ancient Church: Exploring the Mystery of the Trinity on the Feast of the Nativity." What is so special about the baby born in Bethlehem that, to celebrate his birth, we should sing songs to Him, have feasts with our families, decorate our homes, and take days off work? For ancient Christians, the answer was that Jesus is Christ is God. The great theologians of the fourth-century theologians clarified this to mean that Jesus is of the same substance as God the Father. But for many of these ancient theologians, the starting point is not the virgin mother and child, not the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay, not the angels from the realms of glory. Rather, for those in the tradition of St Athanasius (Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt from 328-373) it was Christ high and lifted up, naked and bleeding on a cross at Golgotha, that lead them to profess his divinity. In this lecture, Dr Matthew Hos